Love Is A Choice

Love is not a warm fuzzy feeling. It's not butterflies in your belly. It's not about happiness and good feelings. Love is not a feeling.

Love is a choice. Love is action. Love is standing firm in the storms as they come and batter you and make you feel weak and tired. Love is looking at your spouse during an argument and choosing to stay...even when leaving might be easier.

Do you think Jesus, hanging on that cross, beaten and bloodied, flesh torn from his body...felt like loving us? Do you think He wanted to endure the punishment that wasn't His? Do you think He was feeling butterflies in his stomach as He thought about you and me?

I don't. I don't think Jesus was feeling love that day...but He sure chose love that day. He reached through the cloud of anguish and unimaginable suffering and took the sin off of you and me. He chose to love us even though we didn't deserve it. Even though He knew we might not love Him back.

So, when your child is throwing another tantrum...
When your spouse does that one thing that makes you crazy...
When your neighbor spouts hateful things to/about you...
When you're ready to walk away, when you think you simply cannot take another moment, when the butterflies died years ago and you feel nothing but contempt...

Choose love.




(Please note, I am not referring to or recommending that people in abusive situations stay in those situations. If you are being abused...get help!)